Celia Walden goes shopping online

Celia Walden falls victim to the new way of shopping

For a second I just lie there, eyes closed, taking in the gentle early-morning sounds of Beverly Hills. Then it hits me like a jackhammer. Oh, God, I’ve done it again. Under the duvet my laptop is blinking woozily at me, and my credit cards are scattered on my bedside table. Cautiously, dimming the screen down to a soft glow so as not to wake my husband, I log on to my email. 'Your Barneys order is preparing to ship.' Oh, dear. 'Congratulations Celia! You have won the Fisher-Price school bus! Bidding ended at $20.' Twenty dollars for a Fisher-Price school bus – what was I thinking? But I’m distracted by a third email and the – surely erroneous – figure at the top: 'We’ve received your order from the New York Times store.' Apparently I’m the proud owner of an original, unsigned (and discounted) Man Ray lithograph. A new message pings in. 'Saks’ sneak peek early bird sale ends at noon! Hurry! Sixty per cent off' – seriously? Well, nobody’s going to pass up that kind of offer are they?

The results of my late-night online shopping binges manifest themselves like a hangover. I’ll wake up with a guilty conscience, throbbing temples and a pervading nausea no amount of Alka-Seltzer will quell. But I’m more inclined, like my husband, to call it a disease. In fact I like the idea: it takes away the element of responsibility – turns me into the victim. And there’s no doubt that I am one. When you’re at the mercy of ferocious American-style online marketeers 24/7, when you’re being offered free delivery by the end of the day, free returns and hefty discounts if you place your order in the next half hour, it’s only a matter of time before you buckle.

Back home in Britain, online shopping is still a plodding, lacklustre affair. The goods take days, even weeks, to arrive, and the returns forms even longer to complete. They don’t tell you how lucky and accomplished you are to be shopping with them. They don’t remember your birthday, give you 60 days to return any item and thank you for your custom with a whopping 20 per cent discount off your next order. And so before you know it there’s a disembodied finger getting one-click happy on the buy now button, and you’re waiting by the front gate for the UPS guy at 7pm along with the other Beverly Hills housewives, eyeing up their Bluefly and Zappos boxes in case there is something you’re missing out on. And perhaps there is: that thing called life. Some day, when I escape this lonely, desert-town existence, I’ll get back to it.